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Audre Lorde calls for our silence to be transformed into language and action in her 1977 speech. But if our silence will not protect us, then why do we hold on to it for comfort? Why do revert to silence when we witness, see and read about the injustices and cruelty of this world? Why do we let fear take over? Why do we let compliance sink in?

62 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, we’re still having a passive-aggressive argument over whether every school-aged child deserves equitable funding for their school. Three-score and two years ago, the legendary Thurgood Marshall led one of the most influential civil rights cases in the nation in BvB, a case …

We need a movement that doesn’t seek to “reform” or “refashion” an antiquated system, but desires to radically change it. We need educators who are just as familiar with Paulo Freire as they are with John Dewey, whose educational philosophy is rooted in a real and authentic sociology. Educators need to be race- and class-conscious, and view their work as a response to prevailing social problems.

Please do tell me I should be doing more. The job of teaching itself is a pleasure, an honor, and it is work. The acts of building relationships with students that make sending them to the dean’s office unnecessary isn’t a simple matter of standing there and expecting them to …

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak at William Paterson University in New Jersey to their college of education. Their education program definitely has the right leaders to move their future teachers forward. After I spoke at length about being a teacher, cultural competence, and teacher leadership, …

I normally talk to young adults about math and other academics, but recently, because we’re winding up the school year, subjects have expanded to Fetty Wap and flicking wrists. The currency for “young and cool” changes over time, almost as quickly as we age. Yet, on this day, the subject …

After the bell sounded today, as with every day, I like to sit at my desk for 10-20 minutes to decompress. I exhale a few times, staring at the scuffed white board filled with numbers and figures hastily put together from students’ responses. I don’t capture dialogue well, but all …

In the last month, there were a plethora of highly publicized articles on why teachers quit, the most poignant came from the Atlantic’s Amanda Machado, whose title “Why Do Teachers Of Color Quit?” hit me square in the jaw: That life-long aspiration is the last issue that teachers from lower-income …

The way I taught this year, you’d think I had a chip on my shoulder. I do, and now I own it. The last two months, I revamped my whole teaching style, not because Charlotte Danielson or any other education expert told me to do it, but because I’m in …

Here’s my latest at The Collaborateurs, where I discuss my reason for joining #HerePastJune, a United For Public Schools project: … we actually need to reconsider how we look at time in school. According to many reports (including some that US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan quotes), the United States …

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you’re a blogger writing about education and a whole mess of other stuff that permeates the experiences you have as an educator looking inward and outward, trying to seek solutions to complex and amorphous situations. Let’s say you decided to look at the landscape of writing …

“You have 135 minutes left on this test. Are there any questions?” After a quick pause, I said, “You may begin.” As the students got to work on this section of the test, I began to reflect on my life as a teacher, and came to realize that, yes, I …